76 BH,4RATPUR STATE
raised the Jāt power to its zenith. In 1733 he captured the old fort of
Bharatpur from Khem Karan, the rival Jat chief, whom he killed, and
laid the foundations of the present capital. In 1753 he sacked Delhi,
and in the following year successfully repelled the combined attack of
the imperial forces aided by Holkar and Jaipur, and later on signally
defeated Holkar at Kūmher. His crowning achievement was the
capture in 1761 of Agra (which the Jāts held till 1774), together with
the sovereignty of Agra and Muttra Districts, most of the territory now
called Alwar, and parts of Gurgaon and Rohtak. Sļiraj Mal met his
death in 1763 at the hands of a squadron of Mughal horse while
making a foolhardy attempt to hunt in the imperial domains, and was
succeeded by his eldest son, Jawāhir Singh. The latter possessed the
valour without the capacity of his father, but, nevertheless, during his
short rule, extended the Jat possessions to their utmost limit. He lived
chiefly in the Agra palace, where it was his whim to sit on the black
marble throne of Jahang1r; and it was here that he was murdered in
June, 1768.
From the death of Jawāhir Singh the power of the Jats began to
decay and their dominions to contract. The process was hastened by
family dissensions, the increasing influence of the Marāthās, and the
rise of a powerful rival in the chief of the new-born Rājput State of
Alwar, to whom the Alwar fort was surrendered by the Bharatpur forces
in 1775, and who by the end of the century succeeded in expelling the
Jāts from all the northern parganas of Alwar. Jawāhir Singh's imme-
diate successor, Ratan Singh, ruled for only nine months, and was
followed by his son, Kesri Singh, a minor. Nawal Singh was appointed
regent, but his brother, Ranjit Singh, intrigued against him, and
a period of great confusion ensued. In 1771 the Marāthās, taking
advantage of the discord, expelled the Jāts from all their conquests east
of the Jumna; while Najaf Khan, who espoused the cause of Ranjit,
recovered Agra in 1774, and by defeating Nawal Singh at Barsāna, and
capturing Dig in 1776, broke the power of the Jāts, and reannexed all
their territory except the Bharatpur pargana, which was left to Kesri
Singh. The death of Nawal Singh at Dig was shortly followed by that
of Kesri Singh, and Ranjit Singh succeeded in 1776. The fortunes of
the Jāts, now at their lowest ebb, were partially restored through the
intercession of the Ran! Kishori, widow of the great Sūraj Mal, who,
by her personal appeal to Najaf Khan, obtained the restoration of ten
districts. These were, however, resumed on Najaf Khān's death in
1782 by his successor, Mirza Shafi, but the latter was murdered at Dig
in the following year, and Ranjit Singh recovered possession. In 1784
Sindhia, acting nominally on behalf of Shah Alam II, again confiscated
the Bharatpur territories; but, once more on the petition of the aged
Ran!, they were restored (in 1785) with the addition of Dig. Thence-